Today I know games aren´t expansive anymore. I complained sometime ago to a friend that they would be, but he answered that this would not be true and explained it to me. I realized he is right. Now, he did write a set of articles and how he got to a big collection of games without huge costs. I really suggest to read the articles as it is basically what he explained me.

You know, if you are not much informed like my friend, you will probably pay that much for games like I did in the past. But with his tips I am now a bargain hunter for games too. I don´t really need the games soon as they come out. I grown up and I am rather casual gamer but it´s possible to get the games cheaper and that not too late. Sure, they won´t be price reduced on the day when they are released but they probably will cost less months later and if you are informed, then you can make some good deals like 75% off and so.

He was right, with a little bit patience you can get many games to a quarter or less of the price they did cost earlier. Is this game less interesting if you get it weeks or months later? If you are like me, then you probably say “no!”. It´s not bad if you get the game for example three months later but for a good price, as there will be still many people who use the multiplayer mode and if you are only interested in single player, you probably won´t take much care about this aspect anyway. You must also consider that it will take a lot of time until a sequel is released, so that there is still enough time to enjoy the multiplayer mode with people from all around the world.

I decided to wait a little bit until I grab a game but I will pay less and otherwise it won´t affect me much. I simply get it for less and that is somewhat cool because I can own way more games than before without much more costs. This was not possible before. You might think about this too.

Today I wanna show you some very simple Worksteps so that you later can create your own extruded 3d Text with Cinema 4d. There will be several Cases where you could use that for your own 3d Text Logo or just for any other Scene you create.

Ok let us run these Steps now!

First of all we need a simple Textform which we can find under Menu “Objects–>>Spline Primitive–>>Text” on top:

Once clicked, you will see it in your Mainview. Thats how it looks now:

I´m sure you know this panel on the right side of your Cinema 4d which is called Objectmanager. If you take a look there now, you will notice that you find that Textobject there too.

Once clicked you will see some attributes we could change. Related to the Textobject these options you can change, are similar to any other settings you would change in a Windows Textapplication like Words. So indeed you could now there start to type in another Textmessage and choose your Font, the Textalignment, Horizontal Spacing, Vertical Spacing and what ever you like. But for this Tutorial we will use the standard Textsettings. I just wanted to refer on that so that you later know how to set up the Fonts you want to use. You still can play around with that later.

So here is the Screenshot of this Objectmanager and Attributemanager:

Ok but lets go on now. We both noticed that our Text looks horrible flat and boring. We gonna change that now, as we need a 3d Text!

What we now need, is an Object which is something like a modificator Script. I mean more precisely that it will convert (extruding) our flat Textspline to a 3d Text.

To do so, we need that Object called “Extrude NURBS” and we will find it in the Menu “Objects–>>NURBS–>>Extrude NURBS” on top:

Once clicket, you will find that Object now in the Objectmanager too:

But thats not all as this step still doesnt change anything with our Text. In the Objectmanager we need to subordinate our Textobject under the Extrude NURBS Object. Its easy. Just hold-click (drag&drop) the Textobject and move it into the Extrude Object. As you can see, the Textobject is now a Sub-Object of the Extrude NURBS Object:

Now we can see the first major transformation of our Text:

But this is still not the Result we want because the Textedges are to much square. Lets fiddle some more!

We want that Text with more curve. So again look at the Objectmanager and click there on the Extrude Object so that we can make some changes in the Attributemanager for that Object. As we have the Object now loaded in the Attributemanager, we click now on the Tab called “Caps”:

Here we should change the Start and End Attribute from “Cap” to “Fillet Cap”.

Now lets finally admire our 3d Textobject:

And here comes, how it could look like if you add some selfmade Textures, Lights and so on:

That was easy or? Now you can repeat these Steps but play around with every single Setting you´ll find. Play some Trial and Error. Thats the way how you will find out more!

At the very end, I´ll give you some Bonus-Knowhow:

If you did ask your self what the Word on the textured Picture means… This Tutorial was intended to be used on a German Website of a Friend but I translated this “HowTo”. So here is the Bonus-Knowhow! This Word is German and means “Ready”, “Finished” or “Complete” in your Language .

It looks like our server was effected by a Distributed Denial Of Service Attack at some point over night. This attack seems to have been effecting thousands of servers across the Internet. We have reset the server now and it seems to be back up and running ok. If you logged in during that time, and were unable to see the login screen graphic, you may want to relog now to get your viewer set up again with viewer tag colors etc. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Jessica Lyon

So this gives me a reason for speculation. Who could have interest to DoS-Attack the Phoenix Viewer? I mean… after all the Emerald Drama I only can think in one direction. Maybe peoples who are now banned from Second Life and maybe because they are still pissed that a similar Viewer called Phoenix Viewer stays alive? Anyhow I only can imagine that Arabella Steadham´s DramaTeam was behind the DoS-Attack. But its only my guess. Im not sure about this.

However.. seems that everything is ok now. But it gives reasons for speculation or?

I told you in “this Blogpost” that I did create a custom UI Skin for the Phoenix Viewer. Now I had a response from LordGregGreg and if I am finished with everything I can email him the files and things start rolling.

So I told him that I will monitor my own UI Skin for a while now. I think I will monitor it for a Week while I play Second Life. I think thats the way how I can make some adjustment if I find anything strange in the UI.. yea I would call it betatest on my own. But at the moment I didnt find anything strange. But better using it one week so that I did explore every single menu. Its a measure of precaution so that I dont send out a UI Skin with failure.

But everything seems that this Skin will be one of the alternative Phoenix Viewer UI´s in the future. At least you might be able to choose this one then in your option panel.

That makes me happy. The Phoenix Viewer gives me so much fun with Second Life and now I am able to give something back to this awesome Team which is responsible for it that this great Third Party Viewer stays alive.

Today I was bored and searched a new activity. While I did reading the Phoenix Viewer Wiki, I found there a short but good understandable Guide called “Custom UI Skins”. I never thought I would create an custom UI for a Viewer but as I was bored I did give it a try.

First of all it was a lot of orientation, training and as they wrote in the Guide “Trial and error rocks!”. I agree at this point and I had a lot of fun with it.

So I would like to introduce you in the result:

(You can click on this screenshot to load it maximized)

As I wasnt sure if peoples will like this custom UI, I thought I could ask in the Phoenix Viewer Support Group and then I´ve got positiv Feedback which made me happy.

Someone wrote me I should introduce this UI Skin to Jessica Lyon from the Phoenix Viewer Team. And I did so..

Seems that they like it so as she said I did contact LordGregGreg but he was offline. So now I wait for a reply but I am still pretty happy about this day. Sometimes a bored day can really end in a day full of creativity. Sometimes you just have to go new ways and learn new stuff. 🙂

So if I understand it right, they would add this new UI Skin to the next release but I will see what LordGregGreg will say if he reply. If it will be in the next release as alternative UI, then I am happy, that I could give something back to this wonderful Viewer and this great Team which supply us with this awesome awesome Viewer. 🙂

I know some of us use the xfire Tool beside the games we play as this is the easiest way to make screenshots, videos and upload it fast without trouble. In addition xfire lets us broadcast our online activity if we want to, on a very easy way. So for sure we want to use this Tool with Second Life as well. But the main problem is that xfire only supports the official Second Life Client. Lately a friend asked me howto add a third party viewer like the Phoenix Viewer to xfire (Indeed this is probably working with all other TPV´s). And I thought this is something which could interest other peoples as well. If you still dont know whats xfire for, just see what Torley wrote about this wonderful Tool here. Or take a look at the Official Xfire Website.

I will explain how to add the Phoenix Viewer to xfire. As I said it is probably working with all other Third Party Viewers. I tested it also withFirestorm Viewer. If you noticed it´s working with any other TPV you use, then feel free to add a comment here and name the Viewer and mention that it worked too.)

First I need to say it is much more simple then you can imagine:

1. First of all we go to our Phoenix Viewer directory. There we look for the file called “PhoenixViewer.exe” (in some releases it is just called phoenix.exe) and rename it to “SecondLife.exe”. (Indeed, if you use another Second Life Third Party Viewer, you must locate the right Viewer exe)

2. We open our xfire client and go to “Tools” on the top of the xfire working box and there we go to the options panel:

3. Here we open the “games” Tab:

4. Now if Second Life is not in the list on the right site, we just have to find Second Life in the “Not installed” List. If Second Life is already in the List of “installed Games” you just have to click on it.

5. Change Second Life from “Automatically Detect” to “Manual Detect” and set the “Detect Path” by click on “Browse” to your renamed “SecondLife.exe” in your Phoenix Viewer Folder.

6. The final step is to click on “Apply” to save this settings.

Now just make a new shortcut on your desktop to your SecondLife.exe in your Phoeniox Viewer directory, start the Phoenix Viewer and have fun using xfire with Second Life together. 🙂

This is the way how xfire will accept Phoenix Viewer as the Second Life client and after all this, xfire will detect the hours you played Second Life and you will be able to take Screenshots, Videos and upload them to the xfire Webspace. Or if you like to broadcast your activity online.. now you can do everything with your Phoenix Viewer what is offered by xfire! 🙂

Linden Lab announced in a new Blogpost “Next steps for Mesh Import” that Mesh Import is soon in the Open Beta. As I own a 3d application called Macon Cinema 4d wich supports Collada Files, I first would say “Woow great news! Mesh Import is not far away”. But on the other side I think this all this is pretty alarming. But why do I think so?

Well..

I could imagine if Mesh Import is going live that lots of peoples will grap some Files from TurboSquid or any other Website where you can buy or get free objects. This could mean that many mesh creators who did offer there stuff on any other website could get ripped off. And I think that it is safe to say that Linden Lab will get lot of more work because a real big bunch of DMCA troubles.

So from this angel its a bad news. Sure for mesh designers its a great news. But the “grab some mesh and import it” will bring much trouble this is safe to say. Its a great news for fair designers who did create the mesh them self.. but criminal peoples will exploit “Mesh Import”.. they just need to attend any mesh and upload it to Second Life.

Im sure the Future will bring much more trouble. And if you ask me.. why is Linden Lab working on these improvements? Shouldn´t they rather improve the Grid first and all the Grid Performance Problems? Im not a technical and dont know much about the technic behind the Grid but anyhow I guess that Mesh Import will bring more lag then we have already.

So.. yea.. I´m pretty unsure about this news. Yea.. I think it is fine but also alarming.